"C Street" and the Military

[babsbunny]

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/8/7/164840/4673

By Chris Rodda

One of the regular features in the monthly newsletter of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is a section containing a "Violation on Video," in which we show a video clip of a military regulation being violated by a service member or at a military event, and "Captured on Camera," a photo of a violation being committed. The video and photo that we planned to feature in our August newsletter are typical -- a video of a Marine officer appearing on a Christian television show in uniform, and a photo of an Army officer giving a briefing while standing in front of a Christian flag. What's not typical about this month's video and photo is how I happened to come across them. So, rather than just presenting this video and photo in our newsletter in the usual format, I decided to write about the bigger story that led me to find them.


About a month ago, as the John Ensign and Mark Sanford sex scandals were introducing America to the Family's "C Street House," Jeff Sharlet, who had infiltrated and extensively researched the Family for his 2008 book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, began to be besieged with media requests as the one person who could explain this shadowy religious cult to a suddenly interested audience. Jeff quickly saw that as more was being revealed about C Street, more new questions were arising, some of which involved military connections. Jeff had just spent well over a year researching religious fundamentalism in the military for his May 2009 Harper's Magazine cover story "Jesus Killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military," and during the process had become extremely well acquainted with MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein, myself, and the work of MRFF. So, Jeff called Mikey and asked if he could "borrow" me for a few days to work on the C Street investigation.